While the big airline news of the last 24 hours was that United and Continental closed their merger transaction, Frontier Airlines and Midwest Airlines achieved their own milestone as they integrated their reservations systems.
Republic Airways acquired Midwest on July 31, 2009, and Frontier on Oct. 1, 2009. Between codeshare agreements and branded service, Republic and its subsidiaries now operate some 1,625 daily flights to 126 cities in 45 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica.
With the integration of the Frontier and Midwest reservations systems onto one platform and under the Frontier Airlines code, FrontierAirlines.com now can handle all tickets and flights, which also can be serviced through Frontier's call centers.
"Today, Frontier and Midwest become one airline with this technology integration," says Ian Arthur, vice president of marketing and branding. "With one website, one booking engine and one kiosk interface we are back to offering our guests an easy and streamlined user experience."
For Republic, the choice of which reservations system to switch to was fairly easy because both Frontier and Midwest used Sabre Airline Solutions platforms, although "we had different Sabre technology and reservations databases that needed to be aligned and integrated," says Frontier spokeswoman Lindsey Purves.
Purves says it was decided that the two airlines would merge onto the Frontier Sabre partition because it supports Classic Plus, Classic and Economy AirFairs and international service.
The integration announcement came exactly one year after Republic's acquisition of Frontier.
"The advantages today are that all customers are now in one system -- customers can check-in at FrontierAirlines.com or at any kiosk," Purves says. "Additionally, we can now offer a consisistent product on all flights with AirFairs and aligned policies that were not possible without having the same technology platform."
Among other integration achievements, the combined airlines now offer pre-assigned seats systemwide; increased the number of seats available for frequent flyer award redemptions; ceased charging change fees on award tickets made eight days or more ahead of travel, and eliminated fees for tickets booked through the airline's call centers.
There still is work to do, however.
Frontier says the Frontier EarlyReturns and Midwest Miles award programs will be aligned by the end of Fall.